


Shelter Under the Restless Sky

by for_t2



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Auroras, Bandits & Outlaws, Bittersweet Ending, F/F, Huddling For Warmth, Love, Post-Betrayal, Running, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:27:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22104799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2
Summary: Not every bandit turns on Renfri, but none can keep up with her forever
Relationships: Renfri | Shrike (The Witcher)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 27





	Shelter Under the Restless Sky

“Stop.”

Renfri did, mere inches away from the cellar door, her hand on her sword. “I have every right to kill them.” 

“That’s not the point!” Alina tried to keep her voice down, wincing at the slight echo off the old stone walls, wincing with slight shift in Renfri’s position. 

“They betrayed me.”

“They did.” Alina had been the one who found Renfri, bloody and starving, a few short months ago. Her band of bandits had a castle to raid, and apparently, so did Renfri. And, as it turns out, sometimes the greatest of friendships can be forged in a battle of swords. A friendship that was growing to something more.

“Don’t try to stop me.” Until the other bandits in their group heard of the bounty on Renfri’s head. A rich bounty, including a pardon from the Crown of Creyden, with only one condition: Renfri’s head, without the rest of the body. 

“They’ll kill you.” The raid on this tiny little town had been going so well. But nine against two weren’t odds that Alina was ready to bet on. Not when Renfri was on the line. 

Renfri grinned, predatory in a way that chilled Alina to the bones. “They’ll try.” 

“Ren…” 

“It’s my—”

Alina punched her. Not particularly hard, but enough to make her eyes go wide, enough, hopefully to knock her back to Earth, back to the muddy cellar they were hiding in. “Please.” 

“You too?” 

Alina didn’t flinch when Renfri drew her sword. When she directed her murderous glare on her. “Please.” Renfri didn’t say anything. “Please.” Just raised her sword to strike. At the same time Renfi took a step forward, the wooden roof above them creaked. So Alina lunged first. 

Kissed her. 

***** 

Silence can be the most excruciating sound in the world, or the most beautiful, or both at the same time. 

At the moment, tromping through deep snow in endless birch woods, it meant that Renfri was absolutely pissed at Alina. But it also meant that she had listened to her. That she was alive. At least for now. 

“We should find a cave to rest in.” It had seemed like a good plan at first. If the bounty had spread to the towns to the east, west, and south, you head north. Problem was, they had been marching for days now, so many that they had lost track, so many that Alina was pretty sure this the furthest north she had ever been. 

Renfri, of course, continued to ignore her, always marching resolutely a few steps ahead of Alina. 

“It’s been dark for a couple of hours already.” And the problem with marching for this long, just the two of them, alone in the trees, was that it had been a long, long time since they had anywhere to raid. The snow gave them more than enough to drink, but a couple of white foxes and a few handfuls of leaves was hardly enough for even one person. 

Renfri stopped suddenly, turning back when Alina stumbled into her. “It gets dark earlier.” She grabbed Alina’s hand. “Keep walking.” 

The grip was a little rougher than necessary, the tug a little harsher than friendly, but the warmth meant everything. 

***** 

“I count two.” 

Both the bandits crouched just behind the tree line, just beyond the lights of the one small cabin on the edge of the freezing water, fishing boat bobbing in the waves. 

Renfri pulled her sword out of its scabbard. Tossed it into the snow next to Alina. “They won’t notice my dagger.” 

“Wait.” Alina pulled Renfri back down, before she could march out. It wasn’t the tactic she was worried about – it was a bandit classic. Anyone would take pity on the lone starving girl, lost in the woods. Anyone would let her get close. No one would see it coming. But Renfri… 

“What?”

Renfri always had problems stopping. “Good luck.” Alina brought her lips to Renfri’s for the smallest of kisses, the energy to try and persuade her just not there anymore. 

“Don’t need luck” Renfri smirked. 

She marched out of the trees, adding a stagger to her step that wasn’t entirely false. She made it almost halfway to the cabin before one of the fishermen spotted her. 

“Help.” She mumbled, as weakly as she could act. 

“What the hell are you doing out here?” The fisherman rushed towards her, grabbing a blanket. 

“Help.” 

“Come on,” he tossed it around her. Led her towards the warmth of the cabin. “We need to get you to…” 

She didn’t have time to reach her dagger before the other fisherman came rushing out too. Behind her, Alina had stood up just long enough to be seen. Just long enough for the three of them to see her collapse.

***** 

Alina knew something was wrong the moment she stirred. 

The heat of the cabin’s fire tickled across her back, but the other warmth, the softer warmth from the body next to her was gone. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know what was wrong, but when she did, she saw what she feared. Renfri, standing over the bed of the two snoring fishermen, dagger glinting in the light of the flames. 

But she didn’t move. Didn’t stab. “Why don’t you want me to?” 

“Come back to bed.” It wasn’t a bed, really, more like a temporary cot, but it was the best sleep either of them had had in a month, a sleep that Alina wasn’t ready to end.

“Why?” 

“I’m tired.” Renfri usually listened to her. Usually. “You are too.” Renfri wasn’t standing as straight, as proud, as she always did, the hand that held the dagger trembling.

“They can’t know I’m here.” 

“They won’t.” Even if the bounty, if the tales of the curse of the Black Sun, had reached this far north, there wasn’t anything anyone would want to do about it. After presenting them with the tastiest meal Alina had ever had in her life, the two fishermen had lectured them on the stupidity of wandering deep into the woods, of provoking nature, and so on. Alina realised pretty quickly that up here, survival matters a lot more than palace intrigue. 

“They always do.” 

And, no matter who you are, survival isn’t something that can be done alone. “I don’t.”

***** 

“It’s time to go back.” 

“When the sun rises.” This far north, there comes a time when the sun sets and stays down. It had been a couple of weeks already, and the fishermen had promised that it would only be a couple more. But bandits aren’t fishermen, and the two would’ve been getting restless in the best of situations. 

“I want to go back.” 

“I know.” Renfri wasn’t just a bandit. She was a princess, a curse, a terrified, angry young woman, a monster, and the most beautiful person Alina had ever seen, all in one. And Alina knew that in the darkness of this winter even Renfri’s heart wasn’t immune from the seeping creep of the cold. 

“I have to kill them.” Renfri tosses another stone out into the water. “All of them.” 

“I know.” Alina didn’t know what she was expecting when she joined the ranks of the outlawed. Adventure, treasures, glory, the usual. It had seemed better than following in her parents’ drunken footsteps and spending her life in the barrels of the family brewery. And maybe she even thought she could fall in love. 

“I have to.” 

It’s funny how things turn out. “I know you will, Ren.” She never thought her love would lead her here. That love could lead her here. “Nobody can stop you.” 

Renfri chuckled beside her. “Yeah.” Shifted a little closer to her, arms wrapped together under the blanket. “You too.” 

And she never imagined that the sky could be this bright. The northern lights, the fishermen called them, beautiful and powerful in a way none of them quite understood. “Just not today.” She rested her head down on Renfri’s shoulder, watching the colours together. “Just stay with me a little longer.”


End file.
